NCLB waivers at risk in three states

Some states are struggling with how to tie student achievement to teacher and principal evaluations and it’s putting their escape from some of the conditions of the federal No Child Left Behind law at risk.

The NCLB waivers for Kansas, Oregon and Washington are now considered “high-risk” because each state has work to do in tying student growth to teacher and principal evaluations, the Education Department said Thursday.

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Since awarding more than 40 NCLB waivers, this marks the first time the department has ever labeled states’ escape from some onerous components of the law as being in trouble.

These three states received one-year, conditional waivers in 2012 that could be extended for another year as long as states created rules about teacher and principal evaluations that lived up to Education Department demands. The department doesn’t think the states have hit the mark.

It makes sense that delaying the attachment of student growth and achievement to personnel matters gives the department pause, said Anne Hyslop, a policy analyst with the New America Foundation’s education policy program.

“Without that component, what information are we really learning from those teacher evaluation systems?” she said. “I think from No Child Left Behind, it’s a big lesson learned. We really need to consider how much students are learning and we have ways to do that now that we didn’t before. I think this is at least symbolic of the fact that the high bar Arne Duncan laid out is actually a really high bar.”

Tying student growth to teacher and principal evaluations has proven difficult for states, but it’s been a focus of several federal initiatives, including waivers and the Race to the Top grant program. Some, including teachers unions, have taken issue with linking teachers’ raises, evaluations and tenure to student test results. Some also worry about using state tests rather than other measures to measure student growth and evaluate teachers: If a student improves dramatically over the course of a year, for example, but still fails, the failure might not reflect accurately on the teachers’ accomplishments. In subjects such as art or music, states don’t test students. And some younger students aren’t tested at all.

“It’s really complicated,” Hyslop said. “It’s challenging to even assess what the best way to measure growth is. The stakes are very real and very personal.”

Deborah Delisle, assistant secretary for elementary and secondary education at the department, issued letters indicating the high-risk status to Kansas, Oregon and Washington on Wednesday. The states must submit a high-quality plan to the department within the next 30 days outlining how they will address federal concerns, or the high-risk status is considered final. The department will check in monthly with states on their progress. By May 1, 2014, the department must have all the information it needs to make a decision about the states’ high-risk status.

“For all of these states, there’s definitely a path forward,” a department official said. The states must provide the department with data to indicate that student growth comprises a significant role in these evaluations, the official said.

If the states fail to follow through, they could lose their waivers and return to requirements many considered oppressive under NCLB, including having all students reading and doing math on grade level.

Chad Aldeman, a senior policy analyst at Bellwether Education Partners, said the high-risk label for these waivers sends a clear signal to states about obeying the timeline outlined by the department.

“The teacher and principal evaluation systems were promises,” he said. “This is a message to states who aren’t living up to those promises yet.”